Carpenter's Pencil - Tapa blanda

In a prison in the city of Santiago de Compostela, during the early months of 1936, an artist sketches the famous porch of the cathedral that is known as the P rtico da Gloria. He uses a carpenter s pencil. Instead of reproducing the faces of the prophets and elders on the sculptured portal, he replaces them with those of his Republican prison inmates. A prison warder, who is to be the sketcher s murderer, watches in fascination. Years later the warder recounts his memories of that time to a young prostitute and tells of how the artist and his carpenter s pencil continued to influence him. This deeply poetic and moving novel explores the tragedy of the civil war that engulfed Spain and so shook the rest of the world, as well as the memories of the men and women who survived. In the process it also tells an unforgettable love story.

It is the summer of 1936, in the early months of the civil war that engulfed Spain. In a prison in the city of Santiago de Compostela, an artist sketches the Portico de la Gloria. He uses a carpenter's pencil. He replaces the faces of the prophets and elders with those of his Republican inmates.